James Smith Reid

“ No historian more frequently refutes himself. Suetonius was a biographer rather than an historian, and the ancient biographer was even less given to exhaustive inquiry than the ancient historian; moreover Suetonius was not gifted with great critical faculty, though he told the truth so far as he could see it. His Lives of the Twelve Caesars was written nearly at the time when Tacitus was composing the Annals, but was published a little later. Velleius Paterculus is by far the oldest authority for any part of Tiberius’s life. ”

“ On the death of Drusus in the autumn of 9 B.C. Tiberius, whose reputation had hitherto been eclipsed by that of his brother, stepped into the position of the first soldier of the empire. The army, if it did not warmly admire Tiberius, entertained a loyal confidence in a leader who, as Velleius (the historian who served under him) tells us, always made the safety of his soldiers his first care. In the campaign of the year after Drusus's death Tiberius traversed all Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe, and met with slight opposition. ”

“ The social and moral reforms of Augustus were upheld and carried further. Such risings against the emperor's authority as occurred within the Roman domain were put down with no great difficulty. The foreign or rather the frontier policy was a policy of peace, and it was pursued with considerable success. With few exceptions the duties of the Roman forces on the borders were confined to watching the peoples on the other side while they destroyed each other. On the Rhine, at least, masterly inactivity achieved tranquillity which lasted for a long period. ”

“ The principal authorities for the reign of Tiberius are Tacitus and Suetonius. The Annals of Tacitus were not published till nearly eighty years after the death of Tiberius. He rarely quotes an authority by name. In all probability he drew most largely from other historians who had preceded him; to some extent he availed himself of oral tradition; and of archives and original records he made some, but comparatively little, use. In his history of Tiberius two influences were at work, in almost equal strength: on the one hand he strives continually after fairness ”

“ Years afterwards it was found that Drusus had fallen a victim to the treachery of his wife Livilla, who had joined her ambition to that of the emperor's minister of State Sejanus. When Drusus died, Tiberius nominated two of Agrippina's sons as his heirs. But Sejanus had grown strong by nursing the emperor's suspicions and dislike for the household of Germanicus, and the mother and the princes were imprisoned on a charge of crime. In his memoirs of his own life Tiberius declared that he killed Sejanus because he had discovered that he entertained a mad rage against the sons of Germanicus. ”

“ Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa by an earlier marriage, was wife of Tiberius, and had borne him a son, Drusus, afterwards father of Germanicus. Livia, with great difficulty, prevailed upon Augustus to replace Agrippa by Tiberius, who was compelled to exchange Agrippina for Julia, to his bitter grief. During the year of mourning for Agrippa, which delayed his new marriage, Tiberius was occupied with a victorious campaign against the Pannonians, followed by successful expeditions in the three succeeding summers. ”

“ Public security both in Italy and abroad was maintained by a strong hand, and commerce was stimulated by the improvement of communications. Jurisdiction both within and without the capital was on the whole exercised with steadiness and equity, and the laws of the empire were at many points improved. ”